Lie 2 of Pregnancy

I want to preface this with the sentiment that I don't want these posts to come across as negative or making me seem ungrateful to be pregnant. I am not doing this to complain about pregnancy, merely to highlight a lot of misinformation that floats around the baby world that really just isn't how it is. If anything this is to help give insight to other soon to be pregnant women that shows why a lot of the widely publicized doctrine is misinformation. I want to clarify you should always follow your doctors advice, and all opinions given are mine from my own experience.

Lie 2 of Pregnancy: you should only eat 300 calories extra each day vs. you're eating for two

I feel like both of these are terrible awful horrible guidance's of how to adjust your eating habits for pregnancy.

Firstly people who watch calories and weigh themselves daily are more prone to having issues with self esteem, stress management, and lets be honest are just really control freaks. Suggesting an nutritional intake based on calories confuses a lot of women, and it really backfires more than it helps. Those who have never counted calories before and then start, often spend most of their day hungry and when you're pregnant being hungry is the first step to being sick, nauseous, or faint.  You really shouldn't be letting your blood-sugar levels drop based off 'caloric intake', because it risks all of these things. And quite honestly when you are pregnant your blood sugar can and will drop unexpectedly and quickly. From personal experience I can go from feeling fine to white as a sheet in a five minute period, especially if I am busy and forget to snack on anything. And yes, as a pregnant woman snacks will be your new best friend at work, in the car, at school, on your bedside table, and trust me you eat them between every meal or else you feel you might die.

The whole concept of you're eating for two really gets taken the wrong way. This concept is given a bad rap because supposedly people use it as a guide that they should be doubling each meal because baby needs a whole meal as well as you. First of all this concept that women are eating double at their meals is ridiculous. The majority of us are so sick until about 12 weeks that we can barely eat anything. I personally LOST five lbs. during my first trimester because it was all I could do to gag down enough food to not starve. And then after the first trimester you feel like you are carrying around a bowling ball that is pushing up all your organs and constricting your body cavity space including the space your stomach usually would expand into after a normal meal. So the concept that women are going to eat double meals is ridiculous because we feel we can barely fit half a regular meal! And I say regular very loosely but basically a meal is what makes you feel full, but not uncomfortably full to the point it could all come back up.

In my personal opinion the best rule of thumb for eating is just like it should be before you get pregnant-eat until you become full but don't be a glutenous pig. And if you feel like you need to eat two hours later then eat! If you have extra food from your meal then don't eat it! And you need to know your body enough to know when it is bored or actually hungry. But being pregnant you are normally pretty clear on when you are hungry because you either will be nauseous because of acid reflux or have heartburn if you haven't eaten in a couple hours. Or pass out. Essentially small (half a normal meal) frequent meals (about every two hours) are the best guidelines to how your eating habits should change when pregnant.

That is all.

Read Lie 1 of Pregnancy here